A Distant Moon by Erik DeLeo

Author:Erik DeLeo
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub

16

Rest

His teeth chattered.

Reg opened his eyes and realized he was lying on a cot—and shivering. Bags of ice covered his body. He was in a medium-sized room with metal walls. It seemed as though it was a medical station, similar to the kind you’d find on the military front lines or forward bases. There was a machine off to the right with wires coming out of it. Or rather, wires were hooked up to Reg and going to the machine.

The ice was cold enough that it hurt Reg’s skin. He tried to get up and move the bags, but a medbot wheeled into view and held him down firmly.

“You must not move. Rest is required.” said the medbot in monotone.

Reg collapsed back onto the cot without putting up much of a fight. He was more tired than he was cold, and he realized his arm hurt less.

“You had heatstroke and were in severe shock.” continued the medbot.

“Well, now I’m freezing.”

“Your core temperature is still elevated.”

“Can you remove the ice?”

“My protocols dictate that is not possible at this time.”

It didn’t feel like his core temperature was elevated, but Reg didn’t have the strength to argue. He noticed a container next to the cot filled with some kind of clear liquid. Suspended in the liquid were a lot of baar wurms.

“Did you get all the wurms?” asked Reg weakly.

“Yes. We removed them before your demise in 12 standard hors.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” said Reg. “How much longer with the ice?”

“Your core temperature will be back in the designated safe zone within 3 mons.”

“Praise. The. Gods.” said Reg, as his teeth clacked together.

Reg wasn’t the religious type. But he didn’t mind stealing their expressions. With the life he had lived, he didn’t believe in one miraculous force that held everything together. He didn’t follow the Gelos Pantheon, either—those monks were crazy. The galaxy was too messy with too much war and too much suffering for Reg to believe in otherworldly benevolent creatures or an all-knowing entity.

“So, umm, I still can’t feel my legs.”

“Your spine has undergone severe trauma. We made an incision in your back to repair a broken vertebrae, and a nerve stabilization compound was injected to help your spinal cord.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t help me know if I’m going to walk again.”

“With the healing accelerators we injected into your body, you should start to get feeling in your legs within one Standard Rotation.”

“Well, that’s a relief. I thought I was a dead man.”

“You certainly would have been dead.”

The medbot continued about its duties, gliding back and forth across the floor, monitoring various machines, some hooked up to Reg. Right on the dot, the ice bags were removed, and he was covered in a thermal blanket. When his stomach let out a loud growl/gurgle, he realized he was starving.

“Is there anything to eat? Because seriously, I’m pretty much going to devour my own arm here shortly.”

“That would not be advisable,” responded the medbot, as humorlessly as one would expect a medbot to respond. “We shall get you the proper nutritional requirements soon.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.